


slash and burn, return, listen to yourself churn

by skuls



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Post-Episode: s10e06 My Struggle II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-03
Updated: 2017-05-03
Packaged: 2018-10-27 19:59:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10815693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skuls/pseuds/skuls
Summary: He thinks they share somewhat of a companionable sadness, his cell mate and him."I’m William,” he says at one point.Dana smiles shakily. “Hi.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Based off the prompt "I don't trust you."
> 
> Original post: https://how-i-met-your-mulder.tumblr.com/post/150940977758/3-i-dont-trust-you-william
> 
> Title taken from lyrics of "It's the End of The World As We Know It" by REM

_February, 2016_

He pulls the edges of his tattered gray windbreaker around him, and huddles against in the corner, shivering. It is too quiet here, his cacophonous thoughts echoing through his skull. 

The door swings open, and something hits the floor hard. William doesn’t bother looking up; he is too tired. He leans his head back against the wall, eyes screwed shut. There is a breathy gasp, and then a, “Oh, God.” There are fingers at his temple suddenly, stroking in a motion that feels too much like his mother for his own taste. “Sweetie?” the woman who’s been shoved in with him whispers. “Are you okay?”

William turns his head away.

“What’s your name? Are you…”

“Go away,” he whispers. He wants to be alone. 

“It’s okay. I’m not with them. You can trust me.”

“I don’t.” He swallows roughly against his sore throat, and opens his eyes to look at her. “I don’t trust you.”

She is crouched beside him, auburn hair tangled in waves around her face. Her eyes are startlingly familiar. “That’s okay,” she whispers.

* * *

He’d been running for help when it happened. His parents had been sick, curled around each other in bed with blankets piled over them. He’d called 911 repeatedly only to hear the dial tone echo in his ear. He’d run for help because he didn’t know what else to do, and the light had come, had engulfed him completely and swept him under in a wave. 

The woman - “I’m Dana,” she says - argues with someone who visits their cell, and leaves behind the stomach-turning scent of nicotine. She screams at him, shouting about someone named Mulder. “What do you want with him?” she snarls at one point, and William is pretty sure she means him, and not Mulder, whoever that is.

She cries when she thinks he can’t hear, cries in a way that’s both full of pain and obvious she’s trying to hide it. He wants to comfort her, but has no idea how. He’s done his own share of crying in this stainless steel room. He doesn’t even know if his parents are alive or not, much less anyone else he knows. He thinks they share somewhat of a companionable sadness, his cell mate and him. 

“I’m William,” he says at one point. 

Dana smiles shakily. “Hi.” 

* * *

“You know who I am,” he says.

Dana looks up from the opposite corner. “I think I do,” she says quietly. 

William tightens his grip on his knees. “You know why we’re here.”

“It’s because we’re not going to die from what everyone else is dying from,” she whispers. “We have the antibodies, and they’re not going to risk that getting out.”

Their eyes meet across the room. There’s something familiar about her, something he can’t explain. “You knew me,” he says. “You know me. Why?”

Dana takes a sharp breath. “You… look like someone I know.”

William remembers cutting out pictures in newspapers and magazines of anyone who vaguely looked like him, of trying and failing and failing to hack the government database, of the folder on his computer where he kept what little evidence he had. All these years of looking, and apparently what leads to the reunion is a fucking UFO. “You’re my birth mother.”

Dana is crying now, but she wipes her eyes to look at him. “Yes, I am.”

* * *

She wants to know about him - about his parents, his hobbies, school. He tells her, in detail, about the year he won the Wyoming State Science Fair, and she listens intently. He tells her about his years in soccer, the books he’s read, the trip he took to the Grand Canyon at nine. He tells her about his attempts to find her. She laughs at the hacking stories, says, “I’m an FBI agent, you know.”

Actually he hadn’t. “You gonna arrest me?” he teases right back. She smiles like he caught her by surprise. 

He wants to know about his birth father. Dana brightens as soon as he brings it up, and immediately starts talking. Apparently it’s the Mulder that she kept mentioning to the smoking man. She talks for a long time without running out of things to say. William smiles at most of them. “Where is he now?” he asks at one point, and Dana’s face darkens. “Is he okay?”

“He’s dying,” she says simply. “Or maybe he’s already dead - I don’t know, but I have to save him.”

Silence falls over them. William leans his head against the wall. “Dana?”

“Yes?”

“Did you say that I could save him?”

“I think so, yes.”

“I want to help, then.”

* * *

“Dana?”

“Yes, William?”

“Why did you give me up?”

“I… it wasn’t… it wasn’t safe, for you. I wanted you to have a normal life. But it was… it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.”

“Oh.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Dana?”

“Yes?”

“I want to keep seeing you… after we get out of here. After I go home. And I want to meet Mulder, too.”

“I’d like that.”

* * *

It’s been buzzing in his ears, through his skull. His palms are tingling with the sense of it. He thinks it’s time, thinks he might be strong enough.

Dana is asleep, curled on her side. He shakes her gently to wake her up. “Mulder?” she whispers sleepily before she realizes. “William? What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

“Fine.” William lowers his voice to an excited whisper. “Dana, I think I figured it out. I think I know how to get us out of here.” 

Dana twists to sit up and face him, her eyes narrowing in confusion. “You…?” 

“I can get us out of here,” he repeats. “We can save Mulder, and my parents.”

“Is it safe?” she whispers. She reaches out like she might touch him, but stops. William doesn’t know how to tell her that he doesn’t mind. “Will you…”

“I’ll be fine,” he says softly. “I can do it.” He reaches his hand out to help her up.

Dana smiles a little, reaches out and takes it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on the prompt "I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean to fall asleep on you."
> 
> Original post: https://how-i-met-your-mulder.tumblr.com/post/151358799983/hi-there-would-you-please-write-18-i-im-sorry

The first thing Dana does when they get out is to steal a car. She is as FBI-precise as the movies make the FBI out to be, taking a phone as well and punching in numbers methodically. She talks to someone named Skinner, asks about Mulder with a tremor in her voice. “And my parents,” William reminds her from the passenger seat, hating how the request sounds selfish to his own ears. 

She hangs up the phone, tells him, “Skinner’s having your parents airlifted to the hospital where they’re keeping Mulder. We should be there shortly after.” They ended up in fucking Massachusetts, of all places. William’s never been before. She offers a shaky smile, fingers clutching the steering wheel like a lifeline. 

* * *

Dana draws his blood in a lab as soon as they enter the hospital. It’s overcrowded, multiple people in rooms and spilling out into the too-white hallways. William tries not to flinch when the needle pokes his skin. 

“Do my parents first,” he says quietly. He shouldn’t sound so commanding, not when he barely knows this woman, his birth mother who he spent a few days on a UFO with.

“William…” she begins, voice shaking, fingers tightening on the vial. 

“They need it, Dana.” 

“Please, William. He’s all I have,” she says quietly, like she’s about to cry.

“And they’re all I have,” he shoots back, immediately regretting the wince that spreads over her face. Why does this all have to be so hard. 

Dana blinks hard, like she’s blinking away tears. “Okay,” she says softly. “Okay, we’ll do your parents first.” 

His stomach twists with relief when he sees his parents in their hospital bed, and he pushes through to stand in between their beds. He feels like crying. _I’m so sorry I left you_ , he thinks. 

Dana injects them both with the vaccine made with his blood, and does not look at him. Her hair is smoothed back in a ponytail and she’s dressed in scrubs instead of the suit she’d been wearing on the ship. If William doesn’t look at her too hard, he forgets she is his birth mother. She finishes what she is doing, and whispers, “Thank you” to his parents before straightening up. “I’ve got to go take care of Mulder now,” she says.

He’s holding his mother’s hand, which he hasn’t actually done since he was six, and had to hold hands to cross the street. “I’ll come find you.” 

She nods, composing herself, and turns to leave the room. 

“Dana,” he says. She looks back at him. “I hope he makes it.”

“Thank you,” she says, and then she’s gone.

* * *

There’s nothing to do but wait. His parents are both in comas, although their breathing has become more steady and color has returned to their faces. People are starting to filter out of the hospital, although William isn’t sure if it’s because Dana’s administering the cure or because they’re dying. He showers, sleeps for a few hours in the chair between his parents’ beds. Nothing happens. 

He wanders the halls, full of unfamiliar people. He finds a room with an unconscious man in it. A man who seems to share his dark hair and nose. William swallows hard, and sinks into the seat beside the bed. He watches what must be his birth father, the man from the stories Dana relayed on the ship. 

Dana appears sometime later. She looks exhausted, rings around her eyes, attention turning to Mulder before coming to focus in on him. “William?” she says, surprised. “I - how are your parents?”

“Same as him, I think.” He gestures. “That’s him, right? My birth father?”

Dana’s hand is on Mulder’s cheek, and she is crying. “Yes,” she whispers. 

She sinks into the chair beside William, the one nearest to the bed, and pulls Mulder’s hand into hers. Her hand looks like a doll hand compared to his; it’s ridiculous. “You don’t have to stay here,” she says, caressing Mulder’s thumb with her own. “I understand if you want to go and sit with your parents. I can come and find you if you want to talk to him when he wakes up.” She pulls his hand to her mouth, like she can’t stand the distance between them.

“I’ll go check on them later.” It’s lonely in the hospital, and the cries echoing up and down the halls make it all the eerier. He’s missed Dana’s company, having talked to no one but her for days and days. “If you don’t mind me waiting with you.”

Dana turns to smile at him. “I would love that.”

* * *

He wakes up without really remembering how he fell asleep. His head is on Dana’s shoulder. “I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to fall asleep on you,” he stammers, sitting up immediately.

Her fingers comb through his hair in a gesture that can only be described as motherly. “It’s fine,” she says softly, looking at a spot on the top of his head.

He isn’t sure how to interpret this knot in his chest. “I’m sorry,” he says again. “I’m sorry for earlier.” 

Dana looks at him now. Their eyes are exactly the same. “You have nothing to be sorry for, sweetie,” she says. “Nothing.”

He nods. The knot tightens.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m so sorry… for so many things.” 

There’s a sudden sound from behind her, a rustling of sheets and a slurred, “Scully?”

Dana’s eyes widen, and she turns away from him to bend over the hospital bed. “Mulder?” she breaths. 

William watches as his birth mother bends over his birth father, her hand in his hair. He’s blinking blearily up at her, saying something about a light… His hand clasps around hers, and he mutters, “You were gone.” He hasn’t noticed William yet. 

“I’m back. I’m okay.” Dana presses a kiss to his forehead. “ _We’re_ okay.”

“You were taken again?” His birth father sounds blurry and confused. The knot is still tightening, and William almost can’t breathe. He thinks of his parents in their hospital beds.

“I was. But someone helped me get out.” Dana turns to face William, and smiles at him through her tears, extending her hand. He takes it. “I found him, Mulder,” she whispers, tugging him to the bed. 

William looks down at him. He’s paler than usual, his eyes dark and wide, staring at him. The knot tightens so hard that he thinks it might break. He never had time to prepare for meeting Dana, but he should’ve prepared for this moment, this tumultuous moment that could change his entire life.

“William?” Mulder breathes. 

“Hi,” he says awkwardly. 

His birth father smiles, leaning back heavily against his pillows with his eyes closed. “Hi.”

Dana squeezes his hand. The knot loosens, just a little, and William smiles shakily back.


End file.
